Movies like The Song of Sway Lake (2019)
The best movies like The Song of Sway Lake (2019) are The Young One (1960), Tigertail (2020) and Hounddog (2008). If The Song of Sway Lake hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedShadows (1960)6.9/10 from 279 votes
- NewestMotor City (2026)Released 2026
The Young One (1960)
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTigertail (2020)
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHounddog (2008)
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Safety of Objects (2002)
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFlashbacks of a Fool (2008)
An aging Hollywood star, Joe Scott, lives a life of narcissistic hedonism, observed by his laconic personal assistant, Ophelia. The death of his childhood best friend, Boots, takes our protagonist, and the movie, into an extended flashback to a sea-side town in 1970s Britain.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMotor City (2026)
In 1970s Detroit, John Miller falls for a local gangster's girl and lands in prison for a crime he didn't commit. With his life ruined, Miller plots revenge against the man who took his girl away.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJimmy P. (2013)
At the end of WWII, Jimmy Picard, a Native American Blackfoot who fought in France, suffers from unexplainable symptoms and is admitted to a military hospital. When doctors suspect schizophrenia, an eccentric psychoanalyst takes up the case and starts a conversation with the veteran.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHead Full of Honey (2018)
A young girl tries to help her grandfather, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, navigate his increasing forgetfulness, and ends up going on a remarkable adventure with him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Last Movie Star (2018)
An aging screen icon gets lured into accepting an award at a rinky-dink film festival in Nashville, Tenn., sending him on a hilarious fish-out-of-water adventure and an unexpectedly poignant journey into his past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Deep End of the Ocean (1999)
A three-year-old boy disappears during his mother's high school reunion. Nine years later, by chance, he turns up in the town in which the family has just relocated.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisImperial Dreams (2014)
A 21-year-old reformed gangster's devotion to his family and his future is put to the test when he is released from prison and returns to his old stomping grounds in Watts, Los Angeles.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSkin (2009)
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Love Song for Bobby Long (2004)
A headstrong young woman returns to New Orleans after the death of her estranged mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEleanor the Great (2025)
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Sense of an Ending (2017)
A man becomes haunted by his past and is presented with a mysterious legacy that causes him to re-think his current situation in life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOutside In (2018)
An ex-con struggling to readjust to life in his small town forms an intense bond with his former high-school teacher.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLucky Them (2013)
More interested in partying and flirting with young musicians than work, veteran rock journalist Ellie Klug has one last chance to prove her value to her magazine’s editor: a no-stone-unturned search to discover what really happened to long lost rock god, Matt Smith, who also happens to be her ex-boyfriend. Teaming up with an eccentric amateur documentary filmmaker, Ellie hits the road in search of answers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHardball (2001)
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCall Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013)
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Rooster’s Crow at Noon (1996)
While being imprisoned on a remote island for leading a naval-yard workers' strike, a man reminisces about his former days as a naval mechanic and the life back in his hometown.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Suburban Girl (2007)
Publishing assistant Brett Eisenberg wants to be a big-time editor. However, she lacks self-confidence, a problem that isn't helped by her new, overbearing boss. Brett soon enters into a relationship with Archie, an older man who has plenty of his own issues, including alcoholism, diabetes and a difficult relationship with his daughter. Intent on helping Archie get past his problems, she turns to her dying father for advice.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisCrimson Unveiled (TBA)
Haunted by guilt and recurring dreams of a mesmerizing jazz singer, Paul, a grieving widower, is drawn into a mysterious cinema where he must confront the passion he’s long suppressed and choose whether to remain trapped in regret or be reborn in truth.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Arca D'Água (2009)
In a lake surrounded by buildings, a man builds a boat.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Shadows (1960)
The relationship between Lelia, a light-skinned black woman, and Tony, a white man is put in jeopardy when Tony meets Lelia’s darker-skinned jazz singer brother, Hugh, and discovers that her racial heritage is not what he thought it was.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Lake (1950)
Bad weather, farmers who do not allow the dumping of their estate, and people who are willing to sabotage for ideological reasons, disrupt the building of hydro-power on the Neretva river. Upon completion of construction, the benefits of electricity assures people of the necessity of progress.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Kansas City (1996)
A pair of kidnappings expose the complex power dynamics within the corrupt and unpredictable workings of 1930s Kansas City.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGainsbourg: A Heroic Life (2010)
A glimpse at the life of French singer Serge Gainsbourg, from growing up in 1940s Nazi-occupied Paris through his successful song-writing years in the 1960s to his death in 1991 at the age of 62.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHey Good Lookin' (1982)
In 1953 Brooklyn, charismatic hood and The Stompers leader Vinnie Genzianna, his friend and second-in-command Crazy Shapiro, and their respective girlfriends Roz and Eva get wrapped up in an escalating conflict with the rival Black gang, The Chaplains, lead by Boogaloo Jones.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisT (TBA)
A jazzy ballet of vengeance set against Chicago’s towering skyline and deep shadows, this thrilling symphony of elevated action examines the edges of sovereignty, Machiavellianism and the indomitable human will.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Song of Sway Lake?
The closest matches to The Song of Sway Lake are The Young One (1960), Tigertail (2020) and Hounddog (2008). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Song of Sway Lake?
Start with The Young One (1960), the closest match to The Song of Sway Lake.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Song of Sway Lake?
Shadows (1960), rated 6.9/10 by 279 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Song of Sway Lake?
Motor City (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Song of Sway Lake?
Yes: The Young One (1960), Tigertail (2020) and Hounddog (2008).
How are movies similar to The Song of Sway Lake chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Song of Sway Lake, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.